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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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It's Different When We Do It, Chapter 27

or

Did I Just Get Trolled?

tw: old news, unapologetic whataboutism

Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way have a free essay at the (reportedly centrist!) Foreign Affairs: "The Path to American Authoritarianism: What Comes After Democratic Breakdown." (Archive link.) You may notice the URL has "trump" in it, despite that word not appearing in the title. Curious.

But wait--who are Steve Levitsky and Lucan Way? After all, one can scarcely throw a cursor across a website these days without hitting, say, six or seven hyperlinks to "think pieces" about Trump, fascism, fascist Trumpism, or even Trumpist fascism. But never fear--this is no Average Andy/Joe Sixpack collaboration. This is professional work by a team of scholars whose most famous contribution to the canon of political scholarship is the term "competitive authoritarianism." What, you may ask, is competitive authoritarianism? Read on!

Steve Levitsky, according to his employer (Harvard University, naturally), is a

Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Government and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard. He is Senior Fellow at the Kettering Foundation and a Senior Democracy Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His research focuses on democratization and authoritarianism, political parties, and weak and informal institutions, with a focus on Latin America.

His focus is not exclusive--he also writes on Israel policy while calling himself a "lifelong Zionist" (admittedly, in an article endorsing something like BDS)--but his interest in Latin America is apparently more than skin-deep:

Levitsky is married to Liz Mineo, a Peruvian journalist with degrees from the National University of San Marcos and Columbia University who currently works at The Harvard Gazette.

Lucan Way is no less distinguished. Well, maybe a litte less--the University of Toronto is not even the Harvard of Canada, much less the Harvard of, well, Harvard. But his title--his title! He is literally a Distinguished Professor of Democracy. Where Levitsky's focus is Latin America, however, Way's might best be described as "Cold War and Cold War adjacent." He credits at least some of that interest to family ties to historical events:

My stepfather's family were Jewish socialists, and his grandfather, Henrik Ehrlich, was a Menshevik during the 1917 revolution. This familial link to such a pivotal historical moment gave the chapter on Russia a deeper, more personal resonance.

This is an academic power couple, right here. Get one expert on authoritarianism in the New World, one on authoritarianism in the Old World, and baby, you've got a stew going! A book stew. An article stew. A bottomless cornucopia of cosmopolitan political commentary and analysis. Their 2010 text, "Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War," focuses on democratization (or its lack) under authoritarian regimes. David Waldner gave a blurb:

Regimes that blend meaningful elections and illicit incumbent advantage are not merely resting points on the road to democracy; Levitsky and Way guide us along the multiple paths these regimes can take and provide powerful reasoning to explain why nations follow these distinct paths. This deeply insightful analysis of an important subset of post-Cold War regimes is conceptually innovative and precise, empirically ambitious, and theoretical agile, moving fluidly between international and domestic causes of regime dynamics. Read it to understand the dynamics of contemporary hybrid regimes; then read it again to appreciate its many lessons for our general understanding of regime change.

So: you've literally written the book on how democracies are (or are not) born. What are you going to do next? No, no, you're not going to Disneyland--you're going to witness the election of Donald Trump and stop telling people that you study the birth of democracies, but instead the death of democracies. From the Amazon page for Levitsky's (but not Way's) How Democracies Die:

Donald Trump's presidency has raised a question that many of us never thought we'd be asking: Is our democracy in danger? Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt have spent more than twenty years studying the breakdown of democracies in Europe and Latin America, and they believe the answer is yes.

That's the preliminaries. This week, Levitsky and Way published an article, and I have to say, I found it... kinda convincing? Except, I couldn't help but Notice some things that gave me pause. The thesis of the piece, as I mentioned, was that the United States is headed toward "competitive authoritarianism." The article provides a small explainer:

The breakdown of democracy in the United States will not give rise to a classic dictatorship in which elections are a sham and the opposition is locked up, exiled, or killed. Even in a worst-case scenario, Trump will not be able to rewrite the Constitution or overturn the constitutional order. He will be constrained by independent judges, federalism, the country's professionalized military, and high barriers to constitutional reform. There will be elections in 2028, and Republicans could lose them.

But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism--a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent's abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category, including Alberto Fujimori's Peru, Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, and contemporary El Salvador, Hungary, India, Tunisia, and Turkey. Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose, as they did in Malaysia in 2018 and in Poland in 2023. But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair.

(As an aside, Way seems to think India is doing alright, actually? Not sure where that fits in with the above but, co-authored pieces do sometimes result in these little puzzles.)

What actually struck me first about this description was my memory of posters here in the Motte discussing "Brazilification," the process by which the U.S. is, as a result of economics, immigration, and identity politics, gradually adopting the political norms of South and Central American nations. But my experience has been that it is usually more conservative, even arguably nationalist people expressing this concern. While Levitsky and Way do not use the term "Brazilification," they definitely seem to be placing the United States on that trajectory.

They elaborate on the problem at length:

Competitive authoritarianism will transform political life in the United States. As Trump's early flurry of dubiously constitutional executive orders made clear, the cost of public opposition will rise considerably: Democratic Party donors may be targeted by the IRS; businesses that fund civil rights groups may face heightened tax and legal scrutiny or find their ventures stymied by regulators. Critical media outlets will likely confront costly defamation suits or other legal actions as well as retaliatory policies against their parent companies. Americans will still be able to oppose the government, but opposition will be harder and riskier, leading many elites and citizens to decide that the fight is not worth it.

This is where I started to wonder, just a little, whether I was being trolled. While Trump's second term has indeed set a record pace for executive orders, Joe Biden's early flurry of dubiously constitutional executive orders was a greater departure from the norm. Most readers here will be well-acquainted with the IRS targeting of conservative groups. Many will also be aware of the time regulators inappropriately targeted the NRA. Conservative media outlets faced expensive defamation lawsuits (losing some, winning others). The fit with the Biden administration just seems too close in this paragraph, to be pure coincidence... but what am I supposed to conclude from that? Am I supposed to be doing a Straussian reading?

The piece continues:

[M]uch of the coming authoritarianism will take a less visible form: the politicization and weaponization of government bureaucracy. . . . Even in countries such as the United States that have relatively small, laissez-faire governments, this authority creates a plethora of opportunities for leaders to reward allies and punish opponents. No democracy is entirely free of such politicization. But when governments weaponize the state by using its power to systematically disadvantage and weaken the opposition, they undermine liberal democracy. Politics becomes like a soccer match in which the referees, the groundskeepers, and the scorekeepers work for one team to sabotage its rival.

Republicans have long complained against the weaponization of government against conservatives, and Democrats have long ignored those complaints. Whether it's a county clerk jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses or the throw-the-book-at-them attitude toward January 6th protesters, conservatives regularly find the scales of justice thumbed against their interests. Similarly-situated Democrats need fear no prosecution at all.

Levitsky and Way have more to say about this sort of thing:

The most visible means of weaponizing the state is through targeted prosecution. Virtually all elected autocratic governments deploy justice ministries, public prosecutors' offices, and tax and intelligence agencies to investigate and prosecute rival politicians, media companies, editors, journalists, business leaders, universities, and other critics. In traditional dictatorships, critics are often charged with crimes such as sedition, treason, or plotting insurrection, but contemporary autocrats tend to prosecute critics for more mundane offenses, such as corruption, tax evasion, defamation, and even minor violations of arcane rules. If investigators look hard enough, they can usually find petty infractions such as unreported income on tax returns or noncompliance with rarely enforced regulations.

Tax evasion, you say? As for minor violations of arcane rules and rarely enforced regulations, well, the whole "Trump committed a felony" charade in New York was recognized well in advance as "novel" and "built on an untested legal theory."

The argument continues!

Moreover, much of the Republican Party now embraces the idea that America's institutions--from the federal bureaucracy and public schools to the media and private universities--have been corrupted by left-wing ideologies. Authoritarian movements commonly embrace the notion that their country's institutions have been subverted by enemies; autocratic leaders including Erdogan, Orban, and Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro routinely push such claims. Such a worldview tends to justify--even motivate--the kind of purging and packing that Trump promises.

Why would the Republican Party embrace the idea that America's institutions have been corrupted by left-wing ideologies? After all, just 63% of senior executives in government posts are Democrats; only 58% of public school teachers identify as Democrat; fully 3.4% of journalists identify as Republicans, and the ratio of liberal to conservative college professors is a measly 17 to 1!

I guess "believing facts about the ideological makeup of our country's institutions" qualifies as authoritarian, now?

There's more to the article--I invite you to read it. But maybe some of you want to ask, in total exasperation, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" Maybe none! I am not here to do apologetics for Trump. I was just really struck by the idea that this article could have been written, almost word for word, about Biden, or even Obama. Maybe Bush! Maybe others--FDR for sure, right? But I can find no evidency of Levitsky or Way ever actually noticing, or worrying, about American competitive authoritarianism, until Trump. They think he's special. I don't think he's special! I think that, so far, he has actually committed far fewer of the sins on their list, than Biden did. That doesn't mean I endorse Trump's actions, so much as I am confused that a couple of highly-credentialed experts on the matter only seem to recognize American authoritarianism when it is coming from their right (or, more accurately, even when it might eventually be coming from their right).

Aside from that, I don't see any obvious problems with the picture that they paint. Having pundits on both sides of the aisle say similar things about our nation's political trajectory serves to increase my worry that "Brazilification" might be a real thing, and makes me wonder how quickly it might happen, and how seriously I should take the possibility.

(Insert butterfly meme: is this authoritarianism? Insert spaceman meme: always has been.)

One thing I think everyone forgets about the excesses of the early Soviet Union was that this was a polity that already had a long history of severe political repression and extreme political violence. It wasn’t some paradisal democratic wonderland that was suddenly plunged into horror after the revolution. The gulag archipelago, the secret police hauling people off in the middle of the night, the mass executions, the periodic famines— that already existed under the Tsar and had existed for hundreds of years. Stalin was definitely worse than the Tsar, but it was a difference in degree not a difference in kind.

Nazi Germany is bit closer than Russia to the nightmare scenario these people are contemplating, but they forget that Germany had been a monarchy until about 15 years before the Nazis took power, and had about as many internalized democratic norms as post-2003 invasion Iraq. Also the Weimar Republic had been constantly under siege from various stripes of illiberal movements since it’s inception, the first occurring in 1919.

Probably the closest actual analog for democratic backsliding in the US is ancient Republican Rome, but they intentionally don’t want to think about that one because it would require meditating on uncomfortable truths. Yes, Caesar killed the Republic in the end, but he was only able to do that because the Optimate oligarchs had been slowly strangling it for the last 150 years, and had been turfing out the native labor force in favor of foreigners that had fewer legal rights and therefore cost less to work.

Probably the closest actual analog for democratic backsliding in the US is ancient Republican Rome, but they intentionally don’t want to think about that one because it would require meditating on uncomfortable truths. Yes, Caesar killed the Republic in the end, but he was only able to do that because the Optimate oligarchs had been slowly strangling it for the last 150 years, and had been turfing out the native labor force in favor of foreigners that had fewer legal rights and therefore cost less to work.

The truth really isn't that uncomfortable. If the problem is underpaid foreigners who have no rights... why not just grant them rights so they can't be paid less?

Open the borders! Stop having them be closed!

...I admit that I'm biased as a software engineer though. I'm not afraid of globalization because my field is already near-perfectly globalized. Anyone who wants software cheaper can already buy labor from the third world (aside from national-security sensitive domains, but natsec-relevant software engineering is only a tiny fraction of the market.) I don't see why I should be forced to pay for american carpenters if they're not going to be forced to pay for american software.

(Not that I want carpenters being forced to pay for american software. IP law is bullshit and knowledge should be free, etcetera etcetera.)

Also as a software engineer, I take the exact opposite approach; close the borders right up. Importing lots of people puts a strain on resources in the host country, and counteracts the will of the native population in favour of "GDP line go up" type thinking.

Indians in Canada are willing to live in situations that are a massive downgrade in QOL to the non-immigrant population - Brampton is famous for having slums with 20+ Indian individuals packed into a tiny apartment. It isn't rights that prevents them from doing better - it's that it is still an upgrade for them.

and counteracts the will of the native population in favour of "GDP line go up"

I know the will of the population isn't "open borders." But still-- the will of at least ~half the citizen (i.e., native) voting population is that "lots of people" should come in. There are some quibbles about the exact rates, and which immigrants are acceptable, but I don't think the median position is, "everyone except O-1A visas can fuck right off."

The example you give me about the Indians is illustrative. You mean to tell me that there's an entire population of hard workers who don't demand much in the way of resources and you want to keep them out? In the old days we used to have to round these people up with wooden ships! I can see how certain low-skilled segments of the populations are threatened by immigrant labor, but I'm not part of those segments. I'm sympathetic to appeals about helping the cultural ingroup-- but I'm catholic, and an urbanite, so rural southern heretics aren't really any culturally more similar to me than rural latin catholics or urban indian hindus. There's the issue of language barrier, but I find it non-salient. Our modern media environment is more effective at acculturating immigrants than at any prior point in history.

Finally, as per the question of resources: America has no shortage of land. We do have a shortage of buildings (houses), and services (healthcare, childcare)... but just take a guess at what I think the best way to remedy that is.

If it helps, I'm Canadian, and the Indians we get are not considered to be very hard workers.

https://www.indiatoday.in/world/indians-abroad/story/indian-origin-canada-td-bank-free-food-data-scientist-video-fired-students-food-bank-university-2531178-2024-04-24

I'm not gonna lie, that sounds like a skill issue on the part of the canadian culture and government. I mean, it definitely confirms my priors to hear about canadians failing at things because I'm convinced that you're a fake country, to the point where it's the one thing I agree with donald trump on. (That and the need to annex greenland and panama). But anglophones have been successfully exploiting immigrant labor for literally a thousand years. Fix your shit, canada, or we'll come in and fix it for you.

I'm being a little facetious here. Not entirely facetious, but I can see how america is vulnerable to similar attacks. That being said, the very article you linked is an example of a culture successfully punishing someone who's violated a social norm. I know you're making a point along the lines of, "this is the one we caught-- just think about all the other fish out there!" But my response is still going to be, "then make a better net instead of nuking the pond."

I don't disagree with you in that it is definitely a skill issue; I just don't trust a government to ever do better.

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